A freak thunderstorm sent an unwanted guest—one of Tallahassee’s many mighty trees—plummeting through ceramics artist Dorrie Sanders-Duarte’s house last year. While she made it out of the incident in one piece, the intrusion on her home began appearing in her pottery.

“A lot of my newer things have a lot of clouds and rain,” remarks Sanders-Duarte. “It didn’t occur to me that that was what happened, but I’m directly influenced by my life. My immediate surroundings, plans, and thought processes all go into my work.”

Sanders-Duarte is the proprietor of Myakka Clayworks, which she began out of her garage a few years ago. The studio is named for both a dominant type of Floridian soil and her daughter’s nickname.

After moving to Tallahassee, Sanders-Duarte immediately got involved with the Tallahassee Clay Arts organization, and is looking forward to opening her studio to invited visitors for their fourth annual ceramics studio tour on Nov. 17.

A plate by Dorrie Sanders-Duarte features leaf pattern. She is the proprietor of Myakka Clayworks, which she began out of her garage a few years ago.(Photo: Dorrie Sanders-Duarte)

The subject matter that appears in her pottery comes straight from her mind and heart. Sanders-Duarte used to cultivate a tiny vegetable garden, and that experience is apparent in her whimsical vegetable line of mugs. There’s also the cityscape lamps that reflect the skylines she has lived near in Massachusetts and California.

“What I like to do is make people happy,” says Sanders-Duarte. “The art I make has some humor to it. It’s bright and cheery and I want people to see it and say, ‘that made me laugh’ or ‘this is making me smile.’”

Even as a child, Sanders-Duarte wanted to wrap joy within her work and gift it to others. She would fold slips of paper with doodles of potted plants and sell them to her family as greeting cards. The satisfaction she found in this simple gesture continues to motivate her today.

Sanders-Duarte attended the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, where she studied graphic design. Simultaneously, she held a job at a local pottery production studio, Salt Marsh Pottery, working with calligraphy and prints, and admittedly having no interest in clay.

After graduating with her BFA, she worked her way up to head maker at that same pottery studio, learning how to design, glaze, throw on a potter’s wheel, and hand build with clay. As she took part in workshops and residencies to bolster her skills, she eventually fell in love with the medium. Sanders-Duarte credits strong women like Betsy Powel and Sheilagh Flynn for providing mentorship as she sought out her own style and flair.

“Powel is very dedicated to the craft and I learned everything I mostly know about clay from her,” says Sanders-Duarte. “Flynn’s work was the first time I saw forms being made that weren’t typical bowls, and I had no idea you could do that. It was a starting point for me, thinking about what I could make that wasn’t standard.”

Dorrie Sanders-Duarte has a vegetable- inspired themed in many of her mugs.(Photo: Dorrie Sanders-Duarte)

Sanders-Duarte’s mugs, plates, lamps and cake stands exhibit their own unique personalities. Her vegetable-inspired creations began as a happy accident while she was illustrating mugs — a crooked line quickly turned into a carrot, and from there, radishes have become her favorite motif. This graphic style is leftover from her design days and is something Sanders-Duarte considers to be her signature as she blends the art forms together.

Sanders-Duarte says she has come a long way in terms of thinking flexibly about clay’s potential. When she first began, she strove only for perfection. Now she uses a black under glaze to highlight the defects and marks in the clay.

“Some of it is design I purposefully put in, sometimes it’s my fingerprint or whatever mark that happened when I made it,” says Sanders-Duarte. “It gives it this newsprint quality. I like adding the pops of color because it reminds me of a graphic comic book or something printed.”

Dorrie Sanders-Duarte uses a black under glaze to highlightthe defects and marks in the clay.(Photo: Dorrie Sanders-Duarte)

Glazing is her favorite part in the making process as color breathes life into each piece. When it comes to production, Sanders-Duarte will throw, use plaster molds or hand build clay depending on the desired end product. What comes out in the clay first appears in Sanders-Duarte’s dreams or thoughts, and once something stirs up her imagination, she will let it incubate for a period of time before jumping right in.

She sources her clay from Tallahassee Clay Arts. Sanders-Duarte has been involved with the organization for five years and is grateful for Sue Stelzmann’s commitment to supplying both clay and teaching resources to the local ceramics community.

Sanders-Duarte participated in a previous ceramics studio tour two years ago and was delighted by the hundreds of guests she welcomed into her home. Though Myakka Clayworks will be just one stop of 10 on the studio tour this fall, she is hopeful to continue connecting with the community at large and sharing the intimate gift of pottery that graces the tables and cabinets of our homes.

“Clay is such a great medium because it’s really about bringing people together,” says Sanders-Duarte. “People buy pottery to share with other people, to have meals or conversations. I love meeting people and talking about what kind of coffee they drink and how a mug feels good in their hands. It’s something that warms my heart.”